Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 2,2): Zeus god of the dark sky (thunder and lightning): Appendixes and index (Cambridge, 1925)

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Appendix E

these he dug up the dead body and devoured it. At this she fell sick of a fever.
Her husband returned, and found reason to suspect her of entering the forbidden
room. He transformed himself successively into her mother, her relatives, and
her nurse. In this final disguise he induced her to say what she had seen. He
then suddenly turned into a Trimmatos or 'Three-eyed' ogre again, and pre-
pared to eat her for not having kept his secret. Kindling a brasier, the flames
of which licked the sky, he thrust into it a spit till it became red-hot, and went
to fetch his wife. She begged for two hours' respite, slipped out of the window,
and besought first a carter and next a camel-driver to hide her from the
Trimmatos. The camel-driver took pity on her and concealed her in a bale of
cotton. Meantime the ogre had discovered her escape. Starting in pursuit, he
soon came up with the carter, who sent him on to the camel-driver. He thrust
his glowing spit into each bale belonging to the latter before he was satisfied and
took his departure. The spit had wounded his wife's foot. But the camel-driver
took her, still in the bale, to the king's palace and told the king her story. The
royal physician cured her foot ; and she showed such skill in embroidery that
the king and queen chose her as their daughter-in-law. She, fearing the ven-
geance of the ogre, bargained that the wedding should take place at night, that
a bridal chamber should be built reached by seven flights of steps, that these
steps should be strewn with chick-peas, that two pits should be dug at the
bottom of the lowest flight and covered with matting, and that no one should be
told a word about it all. Nevertheless the matter came to the ears of the
Trimmatos, who, disguised as a merchant, repaired to the palace with negroes
in his sacks. His former wife saw through his disguise, and signed to the queen
to ask him what wares he had brought. He replied that he had pistachio-nuts,
dried apricots, and chestnuts. The bride then said that she was indisposed and
would like some of these fruits. The merchant tried to put her off till the
morrow ; but the king's jester, who was at table, went out to sample the wares
and brought back word about the negroes. These were at once put to death.
The merchant, however, made his escape. The same night he took the form of
a Trimmatos once more, mounted to the bridal chamber, cast the dust of a
corpse on the bride-groom to make him sleep soundly, seized the bride and
dragged her off to be spitted for his meal. But on the way she gave him a
sudden push ; he slipped on the chick-peas, and fell into the pit, where he was
devoured himself by a lion and a tiger. The bride fainted on the staircase.
Next morning the physician brought the happy couple to their senses again ;
and the subsequent festivities lasted forty days and forty nights.

Again, episode ii (/3), the escape of the hero in a sheep-skin, forms part of a
wonder-voyage entitled George a?id the Storks, which was related to L. Ross by
a native of Psara or Ipsara, an island off the west coast of Chios :

(6) The Blind Kyklops in a Folk-tale from Psara1.

Long, long ago there lived at Therapia near Constantinople a poor sailor,
who bade three of his children—Dimitri, Michael, and George—go out into the
world and seek their fortunes. So they took service with a captain and made
many trips to Marseilles, Leghorn, Trieste, to Smyrna, to Alexandria, and to
other Mediterranean ports. After two years they joined the crew of a fine
frigate bound on a voyage of discovery. Passing through the Straits of

1 L. RossErinnerung und Mittheilungen aus GriechenlandBerlin 1863 pp. 279—298
' Georg und die Storche' = 0. Hackman op. cit. p. 10 f. no. 2 — Sir J. G. Frazer toe. cit.
p. 440 f. no. 25. I abbreviate from Ross.